


The Case of the Corseted Murderer

by ElizabethDurham



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Corsetry, First Time, Sherlock Being Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 05:58:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElizabethDurham/pseuds/ElizabethDurham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock, in order to disprove a murderer's alibi, visits a men's corsetry shop, and demands John tie him up in said corset, in an attempt to prove even a man in such a position would have been able to cry out in the event of a murder. John is less than enthusiastic. Well, that's what he tells himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Case of the Corseted Murderer

Sherlock had never really understood the point of women’s wear re-made for men. It seemed an utter waste of energy; men’s wear was for men, women’s wear was for women. If the world needed help with that concept, he was in more trouble than he thought. And that was saying something.  
“It’s not just a matter of practicality, Sherlock,” John tried to explain, hurrying to keep up with Sherlock’s long legs, “sexual appeal rarely is.”  
Sherlock turned sharply at that, drilling into John with his piercing eyes, as he did whenever John surprised him with something he didn’t’ know. John, well used to this tactic at this point, just stared mildly back,  
“You do know what sexual appeal is, don’t you Sherlock?” he asked slowly. Sherlock nodded mutely, then continued walking.  
“Of course,” he answered briskly, “I wasn’t aware lacing men up in corsets added to that particular factor, though.”  
“Something Sherlock Holmes doesn’t know,” John said, in the same mild tone, though inside he was barely concealing his glee. Sherlock, being Sherlock, sensed the hidden satisfaction almost immediately, and rolled his eyes,  
“Honestly, John, the predilections of male humans high on testosterone and the anthropological necessity to mate are hardly my area of expertise.”  
“Oh really?” John asked, “then why the sudden trip to the tailor’s? Oh, sorry, I suppose I should really specify the tailor of corsets for men.”  
Sherlock let out a little huff and kept walking. John grinned behind his back.  
“Stop grinning,” Sherlock growled, “you know as well as I it’s for a case. This debate is petty.”  
“And amusing,” John pointed out, “please tell me you need to try on one of those for the case,” he pointed to the glass display case of the storefront Sherlock halted in front of, eying the confections of silk and velour and – my god, was that metal?  
“Obviously,” Sherlock muttered, ducking inside to avoid John’s evil grin.   
The shop was small, not cramped, but cozy, filled with expensively plush chairs and bolts of cloth in various shades, not to mention the various plinths on which the finished masterpieces were displayed.   
“Hello,” the weedy little clerk at the front desk said, looking up from whatever book he was reading, “are you here by appointment, or just dropping in?”  
“We have an appointment,” Sherlock clarified, not even looking at the little man.   
The clerk, for his part, seemed well used to this treatment, for he leapt out from behind his desk and scurried off into a backroom without further questions, returning with an attractively-built man of forty or so, with dark hair and a chiseled face, and (John was proud to note he was learning something) the lightly scarred fingers of a tailor.   
“Mr. Holmes, I take it,” the man said as soon as he saw Sherlock. John raised an eyebrow at the man’s supposition that he was there for the detective, then took a moment to think, taking in Sherlock’s statuesque, delicate grace as opposed to his own bulky solidity. Perhaps the corset man wasn’t a complete idiot after all.   
“Yes,” Sherlock held out a hand vaguely in the direction of the salesman, too busy examining a red velvet specimen with metal ribbing, “and you are?”  
“Mr. Raliph. I’m the tailor here.”  
At this, Sherlock finally did turn around, looking Mr. Raliph up and down before shaking hands in earnest.  
“Mr. Raliph, how do you do? Sherlock Holmes. That’s my partner, John Watson.”   
John raised a weary hand in greeting, taking one of the chairs scattered strategically about the room and settling in for a long wait. It was only when he caught Mr. Raliph’s roughish grin that he realized how Sherlock’s ‘my partner’ had probably sounded. Especially as he had accompanied his friend to a place like this.   
He opened his mouth to say something, as usual, but as he did, he caught Sherlock’s eye, already deep in conversation with Mr. Raliph, and noticed his almost imperceptible shake of the head. Well. Sherlock wanted the tailor to think they were partners? John shrugged internally. Fine. It wasn’t as if it cost John much.   
“….think blue would really suit you. Highlight your eyes and skin tone….pale, I take it? Can’t see much from here.”  
“Yes. Exceedingly so, I’m afraid.”  
“Oh, no. A light skin tone with a dark blue cloth? Perfect…”  
John let their conversation slide in and out of his consciousness, well used to Sherlock’s habit of temporarily abandoning him in favor of whatever shiny toy caught his eye. John’s consolation was that he would always come back, when the job was done. That knowledge was enough to keep him sane during times like this. So, instead of pouting about like most people, John drew on his army discipline, acquired during hours of stakeouts and long waits between battles, and let his mind wander. His train of thought went something like this:  
Sherlock’s bloody mad. No, really. A hand-tailored corset just for a case? He could probably find the bloody data online if he wanted to. But then, that just wouldn’t do, would it? Needs to find it for himself, the bloody prick. And he’s actually going to put it on too! I mean, why? It’s Sherlock! Sherlock. In a corset. Well, it’s not as if he’s got anything to be ashamed of.  
The next five minutes or so consisted of John’s mind going through all the times he’d seen Sherlock partially – or entirely – naked within their flat. The number was surprisingly high. Then, when he ran out of real scenarios, his mind began going over what Sherlock would look like in one of those bloody corsets. Dark blue satin…yes, that would look rather nice against his skin. Perhaps with black embroidery, like the red one Sherlock had been examining? Yes. It was a mark of how unfair the world was that Sherlock, the asexual monster, had been endowed with a figure to shame Adonis.   
“John?”  
“Yeah? What? Sherlock?”   
Sherlock’s voice, cutting, demanding, much like a petulant child, cut through John’s haze. He came to with a little start, blinking to clear his mind and shifting a bit guiltily in his chair as he realized he’d spent the past few minutes imagining his flat mate naked. Well, there wasn’t any shame in that; he tried to tell himself, no harm in appreciation.   
“How does it look?”   
John glanced over, then stopped, stock-still, staring. Sherlock. In a corset. Just a corset Sherlock fucking Holmes laced into a dark blue corset with silver edging, the silver metal of the ribs standing out like actual bones, shoes off, trousers off, pants off, looking like a fucking model.   
Mr. Raliph looked ridiculously pleased with himself, and kept walking around Sherlock, who stood on the little fitting platform prancing like a prized beauty. And, by god, he was.   
“Perfect. Absolutely perfect,” the tailor muttered, looking Sherlock up and down with something close to awe in his eyes, “I’ve had few clients as…physically fit for a corset as you. I must say, it does look rather fetching.”  
And John, once he got over the initial shock, saw that he was right. Sherlock’s ridiculously thin frame was pulled in ever closer at the waist, while the pale expanse of his skin practically glinted against the dark fabric. And…by god, his arse. There was no way someone that thin could have that plush of an arse.   
“You’re staring, John,” Sherlock pointed out after a few mutually enjoyed moments of John’s utter disbelief. John shut his mouth quickly, tearing his eyes away from the vision before him to land on Mr. Raliph, who was smirking,  
“I can fit you for one as well. To match your partner?” he asked innocently. John was at the brink of pointing out angrily that he wasn’t Sherlock Holmes’s partner. That the damned man was asexual for heaven’s sake. That he wasn’t gay. But then he caught Sherlock’s eye, saw that little shake of the head, and resigned himself to the inevitable with a short sigh.  
“No, thank you,” he waved away the eager tailor with a sigh, “I won’t look half as good in one as he does.” That was true enough.   
Mr. Raliph shrugged, as if to say ‘suit yourself,’ going to the cash register to ring Sherlock up. Sherlock stayed where he was, prancing before the mirrors a bit more, apparently. Bloody narcissist.   
“I wouldn’t normally ask,” Mr. Raliph called from the front desk, “but, as I said, you do have rather the ideal physique for our products. Would you consider a photo-shoot for us at some point? Well-compensated, of course.”  
He looked up hopefully, but John could see Sherlock’s interest fading as fast as it had awoken. After a few more seconds of preening, he stepped off the plinth, shaking his head and disappearing into a back room to change back into street cloths,  
“Sorry to disappoint, but I do have rather a busy schedule,” he brushed the storekeeper off, handing the blue corset to Mr. Raliph to be boxed up. The tailor sighed, but didn’t press, handing Sherlock a receipt and packing the little wonder up in tissue paper and a beribboned box.   
“Shame,” he said as he waved them out the door, “but you two have fun, won’t you?” he all but leered at John. John turned away as quickly as was polite, walking perhaps a bit faster than was necessary, away from the shop.   
Sherlock smirked.   
“You needn’t have felt so uncomfortable, John. It wasn’t as if he expected us to start snogging in the middle of his shop.”  
“Wouldn’t be so sure of that,” John muttered darkly, thinking of Mr. Raliph’s leer and his own guilty train of thought. He frowned, running one hand through his hair as he wondered what the hell Sherlock planned to do with his new purchase. 

As it turned out, Sherlock had very specific plans for his corset. John was downstairs typing up the Copper Breeches murder case when the great detective himself flounced downstairs, blue robe swirling around his ankles. John didn’t even bother to look up.   
“Going out again, Sherlock?” he asked vaguely, trying in vain to remember how ‘pernicious’ was spelled, “you don’t happen to know how to spell ‘per-nisc-ious’ do you?”  
“The creators of our wonderful modern computers invented spell-check for just this reason, John, do try not to be an idiot. It would be ever so bothersome to find a replacement blogger.”  
John shrugged off Sherlock’s complaints, more than aware by this point that sarcasm and biting rebukes were Sherlock’s standard response when he was too busy to actually reply.   
“SO,” he asked, when the banging noises from behind him became too loud to ignore, perhaps five minutes after the ‘pernicious’ comment, “working on the corset case, are you?”  
“John,” Sherlock sighed with drama-queen exasperation, “you wouldn’t happen to have a moment, would you?”  
It was John’s turn to sigh. As if Sherlock Holmes ever asked politely.   
“What horribly inconvenient task do you need your trusty blogger for now,” he asked tiredly, spinning around in his swivel-chair to face Sherlock….Sherlock…  
“Bloody Hell,” he breathed out. Sherlock frowned,  
“Come on, John, don’t gawp. I need your help. Preferably within the next ten years.”  
“Yeah…what?” John muttered, brain still stuttering on a back-log, attempting to process the information his eyes were sending him. Sherlock was laced up in his corset again. That bloody corset. And he was….John didn’t rightly know what he was doing. He seemed to have strung himself up awkwardly, tying his legs apart, one to each of the sofa legs, arms swaddled in awkward knots and coils of rope where he had obviously attempted to tie them both in one, and failed.   
“My hands, John, I can’t get them both on my own,” he asked impatiently. John was still staring. Sherlock rolled his eyes,  
“Kindly forgo the shocked realization state, at least until after I’ve constructed the necessary scenario. Hands. Now. Please, John?”  
Almost in a daze, John walked over to the prone detective, trying very hard not to notice his smooth, pale legs, the way his corset slimmed down his waist into a trim line, the stark contrast of the dark material on the alabaster skin, red lips, rumpled black hair….  
“Tie them together, the attach the loose end to that ring on the fireplace. Yes, there,” Sherlock commanded and, as usual, John did as he was told. He wound the ropes about his friend’s thin, delicate wrists, marveling at the long fingers twitching incessantly in their bonds. That done, he took the free end, slipping it through the designated loop and starting another knot.   
“No!” Sherlock’s sharp command cut him off.   
“What?” John asked, wondering what he could possibly have done wrong.   
“Don’t tie it,” Sherlock ordered, run it through, leave the end free.   
John rolled his eyes, but did as he was told.   
“Thank you, John,” Sherlock shifted, rolling about on the carpet to find a more comfortable position, “now, would you be so kind as to pull on that rope as hard as you can?”  
John blinked.   
“What did you say?”  
“You heard me perfectly the first time, John. Pull. Hard.”  
“I can’t do that, Sherlock,” he protested.   
“You can and you will,” the other man said confidently.  
“And why is that?”  
“Because I say so.” Sherlock’s smugness was almost palpable. John sighed. The worst part was, he was right.   
“Fine,” he relented, “but first you tell me why I’m doing this.”  
Sherlock sighed, as he often did when John asked a ‘stupid question.’   
“Do please keep up, John,” he muttered, “the murder suspect claims he didn’t scream for help because he and his boyfriend were playing one of their demented sex games where one of them left the other strung up in a corset with a butt plug up their arse, and the combination of the three rendered him unable to utter more than a harsh croaking sound. I’ve estimated that his lung capacity is about equal to mine, and I’ve laced up this corset to about the pressure it would have exerted on his rather more well-padded frame, and now all that remains to see is if similarly strung I am able to scream out if, in a similar situation, I hear a gunshot.”  
John rubbed at the ever-deepening creases traced on his forehead.   
“Please don’t tell me I’m going to have to shoot a gun,” he pleaded. Sherlock scoffed.   
“Hardly, John. The purpose of this experiment is not reaction time, which our purported murder had plenty of, but capability of speech, which we must establish whether or not he had. Now, will you help me, or shall I call Mrs. Hudson to do it?”   
“No, god no,” John said quickly, thinking of poor Mrs. Hudson confronted with a semi-nude Sherlock, strung up in a corset with a butt plug up his arse. Which reminded him, “you don’t actually have a butt plug in, do you?” he asked Sherlock suspiciously. The detective’s eyes widened.   
“John! Thank you, I completely forgot!”  
John could have slapped himself.   
“It’s sitting on the table over there, along with the lube. You don’t think you could…” Sherlock trailed off. John stared for a moment, thinking Sherlock couldn’t possibly mean what he thought he meant.   
“You don’t actually want me to…” he asked uncertainly. Sherlock sighed again,  
“John, I am in the middle of an experiment. I will not go trough the tedious process of untying my hands and restoring full circulation, and besides, that particular operation, due to angles and arm lengths, is better conducted by another. Now. Lube. Plug. Please?”  
“No!” John nearly shouted, backing away from Sherlock as though shocked by an electric current, “no, no no!”   
“Why not?” Sherlock asked.   
“Because…because…” Why should John have to justify himself? It was Sherlock. Sherlock. In a corset. Tied up. John couldn’t…it wasn’t….no. He did not want to do it. No.   
“Please, John,” Sherlock almost begged, rolling on his stomach to expose his plush arse. John’s mouth fell open again. As if the man had no surprises left. God. That arse. The corset’s laces thinned his waist down to invisibility, flushing out his already well-endowed arse-cheeks so they were like ripe fruits, pale and sculpted like David. John realized his mouth had gone dry.   
“No,” he said again, although he could hear his voice waver, “Sherlock, I’m your friend.”  
“Which is exactly why you can do it,” Sherlock pointed out impatiently, wiggling his arse invitingly, “now come on, I need to text Lestraud the details of the experiment before murder suspect number one boards the next plane to Rio.”  
It was the mention of the case that spurred John into action, and defiantly not those pale arse cheeks waving at him. At least, that’s what John told himself later, when he was justifying the remainder of the night to himself.   
“Fine, Sherlock,” he grumbled, swiping up the lube and plug from the table and bending down next to the man, “but you’re getting the milk tomorrow. And the next day. In fact, let’s just make it a week, how does that sound?”  
Sherlock grunted in reply. John decided that was as much of a reply as he was going to get under the circumstances, and got to it.   
He clipped open the lube and was just slicking up the plug when he realized that it was much too large to go in without preparation. He stopped. Sherlock, no doubt sensing the pause, craned his head around to glare at John,  
“Yes, you’re going to have to open me up first, please do do it quickly,” he snapped, and John thought there was just the slightest traces of anxiety there. It was that anxiety, so uncharacteristic of Sherlock, that made John grin slightly and coat his own fingers in lube. Yes, it was that beautiful uncertainty, not anything else.   
Fingers practically dripping, John pressed the first digit up against Sherlock’s opening.   
“Are you sure you want me doing this?” he asked Sherlock, though he already knew the answer.  
“Get on with it, John!” the other man growled. John shook his head, wondering if there was anything left he wouldn’t’ do for his flat mate.   
“On your head be it,” he muttered, and pushed in.   
John had been expecting a brief squirm as Sherlock acquainted himself with the new feeling. He had expected perhaps a surprised little squawk, maybe even a little grunt and a reflexive shying away from he pressure. He had not expected the low, throaty groan that rumbled up from Sherlock’s throat, nor the unconscious push of Sherlock’s arse not away from his fingers, but into them. He hadn’t expected his instinctual response to push in harder, farther, adding a second digit well before Sherlock could be really ready and scissoring him open so quickly it was almost brutal. He certainly had not expected the way Sherlock panted as he pulled his fingers away to fumble for the plug, or the way his body reacted to the sight of him dripping, open, sweating slightly around his flailing curls.   
“John,” Sherlock muttered.  
“Yeah, I know. Get on with it,” John replied, voice somehow fallen a few octaves in the interim. He found the plug, still slick, and pressed it in where his fingers had been moments before. Sherlock’s eyes flew wide, and he let out a breathy little gasp. It was quite easily the most beautiful thing John had ever seen.   
“Rope. John. The rope,” he huffed, and John complied blindly, rising from his hunkers and going to fetch the end of the rope trailing off from the fireplace hook.   
“Are you sure about this, Sherlock?” he asked, “This isn’t going to be comfortable.”  
The look Sherlock shot him was two parts annoyance, one part superiority (quite a feat, considering his current state), and one part something John couldn’t place. A hunger he had never seen on Sherlock’s face.   
“John, need I repeat myself?”  
John pulled.   
Sherlock moaned. John gawped. Sherlock’s moan wasn’t the sort of thing you would hear from a man being slowly pulled in half. It most closely resembled the noise John’s first (and only) male partner made just as he climaxed.   
“Sherlock,” he asked, “are you all right?”  
Sherlock’s eyes were shut.   
“Harder, John. We have to reach a point where I can’t speak, or where it no longer falls within the range of something one lover would inflict upon another.   
Privately, John thought this entire situation well outside the range of what he would normally call ‘Lover’s play.’ But then, he’d always been a bit too ‘vanilla for many of his friends. So he pulled.   
“Is that enough?” he asked through gritted teeth, trying desperately to ignore the very obvious erection that had been building since he’d leaned down beside Sherlock, wishing the detective would stop with the obscene noises every time John tugged on his arms.   
“More, John.” His voice was rough, deep; scratching at the lowest John had ever heard it go. John complied. There was, he had to admit, a certain thrill at seeing Sherlock spread-eagled before him, in that gorgeous corset, knowing that those delicious moans were his doing. His cock seemed to agree.   
“Sherlock, I don’t know that I can pull any harder,” he finally admitted, when the strain in his arms became uncomfortable. Sherlock nodded. John relaxed his grip slowly, letting his friend fall to the carpet.   
“Well,” the detective said disappointedly, once John had untied his arms and legs, “that was regrettably dull. I could easily have called out, even once you reached your full capacity. Mr. Randelon is obviously lying.”  
He stood up, reaching down to his toes in a full-bodied stretch that presented John with a wonderful view of his rear end.   
“So,” John cleared his throat, “are you going to call Lestraud?”  
“Later,” Sherlock answered dismissively. He bounced a bit on the balls of his feet, and John noticed for the first time since he’d let Sherlock down just how wound up the man was. He was almost quivering with energy, pupils blown wide, a hectic flush to his cheeks, that same hunger in his eyes that he hadn’t been able to place before.   
“Did you…did you take the plug out?” John asked awkwardly, realizing he hadn’t seen him do anything of the sort.   
“No,” Sherlock said, in that same deep, husky voice as before, walking towards John until he felt the need to back away, just to maintain some sort of person space.   
“Why?” he asked, looking up the few inches so he could meet Sherlock’s eyes, dark, intense, hungry?  
“Take a guess, John,” Sherlock murmured, leaning down and pressing his lips to John’s. John froze. Not that it bothered Sherlock. He just brought his hands up to cup John’s face, working his mouth open with that clever tongue, slipping inside to engage John’s own immobile one. That was when John moved. He jerked away, stumbling over the kitchen stool and falling flat on his backside, right beside Sherlock’s E. Coli petri dishes.   
“Sherlock, what?” he asked, too confused for anything more subtle, “is this some bloody experiment?”  
“We already did the experiment, remember?” Sherlock said – and John couldn’t believe he was actually using such a word to describe Sherlock – coyly. From his perch on the ground, John watched as Sherlock advanced again, that damned corset swaying with his hips as he walked, standing over John like Eros posing for a portrait.   
“Yeah, I do recall the incident,” John choked out hoarsely, “so what is this?”  
“This, John,” Sherlock explained patiently, “is what happens after experiments.”  
“I wasn’t aware anything happened between experiments.”  
“It’s called fun, John,” Sherlock rolled his eyes, crouching down until he was almost on top of John, “you are the one who continually extols it virtues, are you not?” he cocked one impossibly sculpted eyebrow, “I thought I might try it out.”  
“Sherlock,” John found himself scrambling away from beneath Sherlock, like frightened mouse running from a cat, “I’m not…you’re not…what?”  
“I’m gay. You’re bi. This is fun. Need I say more?”  
And he reached forwards to claim John’s lips again, moving up to straddle John’s waist, grinding down onto his by-now obvious erection. John decided reason could wait until morning.   
“Bloody finally,” Sherlock muttered, dragging John up and into his bedroom, stopping only once, to admire the figure he cut in his admittedly very fine corset.   
"Stop bloody admiring yourself and let me do that, Sherlock!" John called from the bedroom. Sherlock smirked, and went to find his Watson.


End file.
